3 Simple Ways To Save Money On Groceries

Saving money on groceries can be as simple as making something from scratch instead of buying it already prepared. Small changes can really add up. For example – did you know that by making your own spaghetti sauce you can save $1.50 per jar of the store bought variety? If you serve pasta once per week that turns into $78.00 per year! Make a large batch and freeze in meal-size containers for easy weeknight meals. Easy and healthy!

Here are a few other simple ways to lower your grocery bill:

1. Iced Tea – Making your own iced tea is easy and economical. It only costs $.50 to make one gallon of sweetened iced tea. The store bought ready to drink iced tea costs $2.24 per gallon – quite a savings!

2. Waffles – Making your own waffles is another easy way to reduce your grocery bill. One batch of waffles costs $1.07 to make from scratch. To buy them in the frozen food section will cost $2.99 – small savings, but remember they add up!

3. Artisan Breads – Learning to bake your own artisan breads is a fantastic experience. Most breads cost very little to make and the reward of tasting a fresh loaf straight from the oven is unbeatable! Most artisan breads cost between $.50 and $1.00 to make and $3.00 and up to buy! Depending on how much bread your family consumes – this could be a huge savings!

Lowering the grocery budget isn’t always about eliminating the highest costing items. Small changes add up over time into big savings. Just making the above substitutions saves $7.66 a week or $33.00 per month or $398.00 per year! I don’t know about you – but for me that’s worth it!

What are your favorite things to make yourself to save money? I’d love to hear from you!

Absolutley! I made up a batch of taco seasoning for my Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps and I have plenty left over for other uses. I really loved that I could add more of something I like, and less of other things!

Breads, popsicles, granola, hummus, flavored yogurts (buy a big container of plain, and then dish it out to make those one serving sized ones, customize each one)…i’m sure there’s more, but that’s all i can think of right now. I love how you posted about iced tea–I’ve been on an iced tea kick lately, and it is so much cheaper to make it at home (plus, it tastes so much better!)

Hummus- timely! I just bought a pound of garbanzo beans (dry), soaked them overnight and experimented with “instant hummus”. I put in a dash of toasted sesame oil, some garlic and filled the jar 1/2 way with the beans, then 1″ from top with water. PC’d for 75 minutes (pints). To make the hummus, I strained out water, used a stick blender to puree with a little added lemon juice and salt. Really nice hummus! Got 5 pints of beans out of a pound (although, once they re-hydrated we discovered how tasty those are raw and nibbled quite a bit!)

We do our own iced tea here, too. And then iced coffee, lattes, breads, chips, taco seasoning, crackers… pretty much anything and everything. I’ve also been making homemade laundry detergent and dishwasher liquid.

Love homemade pasta sauce. Just started a HUGE pot this morning while I am working from home today. Because if your going to bother to make it then you might as well make a ton. Plus I love that I can use whatever veggies I have in the fridge that need to be used. We also do almost all organic so that comparative price savings really adds up.

Today’s batch the last of the tomatoes from last year out of the freezer, a zucchini and some peppers I picked last night, Organic Celery and Carrots that are getting close to their prime.

I make my own pizza. A plain pie breaks down this way: dough: $1.50 ($1.75 for whole wheat); sauce $.29 (8 oz can at ALDI); $1.50 for shredded mozzarella. (I don’t count the negligible amounts of oil and oregano I add). Total cost: under $3.50 for a pie I’d never pay less than $10 for at a pizzaria–and fresh from the oven too 🙂

Here’s my recipe for homemade laundry detergent. It’s my favorite way to save money! I also use homemade dishwasher detergent, but I haven’t posted the recipe for it yet.
I like baking sandwich bread and rolls now too! I never knew how much better fresh tasted. I was always afraid of any dough that had to be kneaded.

I try to make as much as I can and have gone to some interesting lengths to try to approximate some of our mainstay ingredients (not always with a lot of success lol). I love your posts on frugality and making do and that you are teaching people to do things for themselves. I especially love your bread posts as bread is truly a staple food in most homes and the supermarket mass produced “stuff” is hideously lacking in good nutrition. It’s no wonder so many people are gluten intolerant! Cheers for another wonderful post 🙂

So true…mass produced bread is so horrible (tasting, looking and nutrient wise) I much prefer to make it my own! I agree – I think that people are developing allergies and intolerances due to all of the preservatives, additives and who knows what else is in our food!

Your bread always makes me drool as I usually read my rss feed reader early in the morning before Steve and the dogs get up so that I can spend a bit of peace and quiet time with my musings. I often think that I should make more bread. I have a huge wood burning stove and its winter at the moment so I really have NO excuses why I don’t, aside from my alarming propencity to scoff bread slathered with butter and my desire to be able to continue to fit out of the door and visit the outside world on a regular basis 😉

Your blog is wonderful and I get very inspired with every visit. You encourage me to try so much more than salad dressing, although that is something. For me. A start for savings, better health, and weight loss to discover the delicious joy of oil and vinegar and the countless variations to add for so many lovely dressings and marinades. Thank you for all you do here Stephanie! Blessings, Gina

I make a lot of the same items as mentioned above, including laundry detergent. I also make my own window cleaner, hairspray, deordorant and toothpaste. I’m going to try making shampoo sometime this week.